Roland G. Henin: 50 Years of Mentoring Great American Chefs

by Susan Crowther

  I guarantee you, those days you weren’t winning any gold. At those times, and this is me sounding old, but back then, it was a lot harder to get gold in competitions. Everybody gets a trophy now, and we try to be more encouraging. At least that’s what we’re told, because the average person is different. I’ve been teaching now for a solid ten years. Classes when I started were way different than classes of today. What’s happened over the years is evolution. As we age, we mellow. Knowing Chef Henin now, I make fun: Chef, if I had done that same thing, years ago, you would have been a lot tougher on me.

  Initially, as an instructor, you want to right all those wrongs, to build that perfect employee. You think, These students are going to go out and work. Nowadays, many culinary students just want to learn to cook. They have no intentions of getting into the business, so the question I give my students to ponder on is: What is culinary school for, now? Is it restaurant training? Are we teaching people about working in a restaurant, or are we teaching people about cooking? It may sound funny, but those are two different worlds. Teaching someone how to cook is different than teaching people how to write a balanced menu for hundreds of people, or how to make this in a quick fashion, because you have to serve hundreds of people. There are different thought processes to how you approach culinary education now, because your average student is different. Ten years ago, I’d ask how many people want to be an executive chef, and almost everybody would raise their hand. Now it’s the other way around, maybe two or three people. The rest of them say, “I want to be a food writer,” or “I want to own a little boutique counter-type store, but we’re going to do a small amount of food.” You might have some, “I just want to write a book,” and you might have some say, “I’m just here because I like to cook.” It’s an expensive hobby. So, that’s changed me. It hasn’t necessarily caused me to mellow, but I have to handle each student a little differently. We still approach it from a professional standpoint, but it may not be as hard as it used to be. Then we get into the Student of Today, the younger generation. Society basically tells people, “Don’t be uncomfortable for a second.” People won’t stand to be uncomfortable, especially when they’re paying to go to your school. They don’t want to be uncomfortable or made fun of. They don’t want to be yelled at, or they’ll just go somewhere else. We’re all fighting for the students, so we have to bend a little bit.

  SUSAN: It’s not the same CIA it was in ’83, ha-ha.

  RANDY: I was a young Latino boy. My parents are of Mexican descent. I’m third generation in the United States, grew up in a small community in Southern California, not influential with high-end cooking. When I went to culinary school, it was vocational work to get a job in a restaurant. I never thought of doing world-class competitions or going after being Certified Master Chef or becoming an Olympic champion … anything like that. When I was in culinary school, the instructor there was an avid competitor and started putting out the usual volunteer for this or that. I never got involved in the beginning. I lived about forty-five minutes from my school, so was like, “I have to get home. I don’t have time for that.” One day it hit me that I should get involved. I went to a culinary show and got hooked. I helped people with their competitions, then competed in my first show and have been competing ever since.

  SUSAN: What attracted you to Chef Henin?

  RANDY: I had my, whatever I like to call it, my awakening—understanding that this career is more than oh, you’re cooking, and you’re going to a kitchen, and you’re working. Cooking is a lifestyle in its true profession. You connect with other people and do more than the norm. When the competition thing came around, I was so attracted to Chef Henin, because of those qualities. It wasn’t just about a person who could cook, because at this point, I had never seen the man cook. His reciting information from classical recipes to techniques, knowing things line by line … you could never get there, to his level. His being a Certified Master Chef … at that point in my career, Master Chef was an unachievable goal. There were only like fifty-something Master Chefs: Oh my God, I’m just this young Hispanic kid. I could never do anything like that. You have to go live in Europe. There’s no way. But I was intrigued. I’m not a person who, even if it feels unobtainable, turns my back. I continue to embrace and go after it and at least associate myself with it. Whenever Chef Henin was judging, I wanted to be part of that show. I chased the gold medal for some time. I won one with a team, but I wanted it personally. I was in what they called “The Silver Bump”—you’re just about there, and it was always close. Chef had this regalness about him, in how he carried himself. It was this energy coming from him that made me, in turn, want to be like that—command that respect, when walking into a room. I don’t necessarily want people to be terrified when they hear my name but I definitely want them to say “whoa.”

  As far as him? He’d laugh and say, “I’m not attracted to you, what are you talking about?” As my career went on, he saw enough of me. A lot of people in this business come and go: do one show, get their medal, and you may never see them again. I kept going, and trust built: Hey, this guy has been around, he’s taken enough beatings, he’s got enough silver medals, bronze medals, a few gold, this young guy knows what he’s talking about.

  How do you know when you’re a chef? It’s not a title where someone comes down and knights you; you just know. Chef and I were at a conference. He’d brought some people he was coaching, and they had their platters displayed. He said, “Chef Torres, I want you to give these guys a critique.”

  I smiled, “Chef, what can I tell them that you haven’t?”

  “You’re one of the younger guys, an up-and-comer. I trust you.”

  That was one of the greatest experiences of my career and my life. You feel like you’ve done things right, paid your dues, and someone trusts you well enough to give feedback to someone they’re working with. I can only hope it was because of years of my hard work and persistence. I had also been involved in coaching students myself, in culinary competitions. It’s easy to say you truly love something, but when you see how many people stick it out, it ends up being a small percentage of the people that start.

  I was in a Hot Food competition and set up my table, which was on wheels and mobile. You don’t ever think of doing anything with it at the beginning, moving that stuff around. I left the tables where they were. I was working inefficiently, so when it came down to the critique, Chef just ripped into me. “You’re being stupid. You could have moved the table, brought the table way over here, put it close to your stove, then you don’t have to move around, wasting steps.” I’m a heavyset guy, need to go to the gym more and lose weight. He says, “I know you need to work out, but this is not the place!”

  I tell people that story and they laugh or cringe and say, “He talks to you that way?”

  I say, “Yeah, but it’s coming from a good place, and guess what? To this day, I never forgot it.”

  When instructing a competing student, I’ll say, “Hey, let’s see if we can move that table and make it more efficient.” That’s where we miss out on, in today’s PC age: Don’t raise your voice, and be polite. People don’t always respond well to polite.

  I bring only certain students to him. I wouldn’t waste Chef Henin’s time bringing someone I didn’t think was going to make it. We had a student, Reilly Meehan, preparing for the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, the annual young commis competition. Reilly won the national and was on his way to the international competition. “Of all the people I’d like you to cook for to prepare, I want you to cook for Chef Henin.”

  He’s nervous, because I’m telling him the stories. Reilly’s cutting butter on the paper, and Chef is giving him a bunch of crap.

  “Why would you ever do that? That’s so dumb.”

  I told Reilly, “Those are the little things that someone like Henin will see that nobody else will see. Nobody else will even think about. Whether or not you think it’s important, people on his level do. All these little tidbits separ
ate the good from the great.”

  He mentored Reilly for that competition, gave us the extra push, and Reilly won the international Santa Rosa series. To this day, to my knowledge, he is the only American who won that competition. Chef Henin jokes with me later and says, “Of course, the only reason he won is because you guys came to me.”

  “Of course, Chef. There’d be no other reason why.”

  I’ve been in pursuit of the Master Chef certification: took the CMC exam in November 2014, completed the eight days, and finished the last part. I didn’t get enough points, so I have to retake it. We were discussing the retake and for Chef, it’s not just discussion, it’s full-on illustration. He’s grabbing things and putting them on the table and using things as examples. At his age—I’ve met plenty of people, and dare not name any names, but you get the toned-down approach: Yeah, well you could do this or that, and would probably be okay. It’s much more subdued, canned, or generic. He goes into the teaching, and to a certain degree, I go back to being that young student again. The master is talking.

  The first time I competed on an international team, they were bringing Chef Henin in to give us a last review. It was one of our big practices before going to Germany. Here I am, getting ready. I’d been on the team for a couple years now, on the international team as a professional. So, now he’s coming back into my life. They’re bringing the Big Man back. The guy is basically going to tell you how bad you’re doing. To a certain degree, you feel confident. You see the refinements you’ve made over the past couple years. Still, Chef Henin is going to capture things. Sure enough, he comes in and asks, Why are you doing that? How come you’re doing that? At that particular point as a professional, as a guy who’s been doing it for a time, it’s harder to take. By all means, you’re always respectful and never going to argue with him. You listen, say, “Yes, Chef,” but in your mind, you’re a little bit like, Really? I just worked on that for like two years and all the other chefs here are fine with it. Why all of a sudden is it not right?

  But then, you sit back and you remember who you are talking to. You remember the difference this person makes, so you go out and you make changes. You have that same feeling of—it’s not fear by any means, because you know nothing is going to physically happen to you, you’re not in danger—but you know your professional reputation is on the line. Someone can see through things that others can’t see. You gotta be ready for him, do your best and go to bat. Sometimes you hit the ball, and sometimes you strike out.

  Our mentoring styles are hard to compare. He’s a European-based chef, and the thought process is different from how American-based chefs are, but I always keep him with me and the thoughts he has instilled. When I coach my culinary teams, I tell them: I’m not here to be nice. This is not the classroom. In the classroom I’m nice. I have to look at the positives. On the culinary team, we focus on the negatives. Focusing on the negatives is what is going to make you better. Compliments kill. They really, really do. Chef Henin only gave you a compliment when you truly deserved it. There wasn’t any kind of courtesy compliment just to be nice, just a compliment if you did it right and knew you did it right. No, he’s not going to be nice. I follow the same approach, and through that, positives will arise. You get your students ready by making sure they understand it’s coming from the right place. It’s never easy when someone keeps bringing up the negatives: You did that wrong again. You did that wrong again. You did that wrong again. He focused on making us better by telling us what we did wrong, not necessarily what we did right. He made us better, didn’t just make us feel better. Modern mentoring is always looking at the positives. Just looking at the positives and complimenting somebody hurts them later, because life is still life. If you don’t focus on the negatives to achieve your goals and be your best, you’ll never get the other stuff that goes along with it.

  That’s kind of how it is. Students will make something and walk around, going to the different offices. The untrained culinary people, the assistants or secretaries will tell them how great it is. Oh, that looks beautiful! That’s fine, but I just don’t ever want a student to get the wrong idea. Let’s face it; they get enough compliments in their homes.

  “I bet your mom or boyfriend or girlfriend or wife or husband all say you’re a great cook, right?”

  They’re like, “Oh yeah. Everybody’s excited about it.”

  “Well, they’re probably wrong, because if you were, you wouldn’t need to be here. You’re here to learn how to cook professionally.” People may have differences of opinion about food, of course, but professional cooking versus cooking at home are completely different worlds.

  I rarely compete myself anymore; it’s my students. It’s that legacy in passing that on and watching my students grow. We just got back from the Culinary Olympics in Germany, where Chef Henin was part of the US culinary teams over the years. One of my students on the US culinary team was onstage getting their medal. I mean, wow! I’d done that: gotten up on stage, gotten my medal, and blah blah, but to see one of the people you’ve trained … wow! What a great thing. It’s that circle you want to continue building. They’re the ones who keep me going on that kind of stuff. They keep me sharp. You always hope they’re going to be better than you.

  What I love about Chef Henin is he’s still there. He might be there in a smaller arena, but I still saw him at the most recent convention. He’s not just there like an old-timer hanging around. He was there managing a booth for his company, Delaware North, walking around, shaking hands, discussing food, and giving people crap, being a part of things. That stamina of still showing up and having a presence is something a lot of us won’t get to, for many different reasons: we don’t take care of our health or we don’t want to go anymore. There’s a lot to be said about seeing someone who continues to fight the fight and be that presence. It’s inspiring.

  Young Roland Henin

  The French Pavilion, 1967

  World Expo, Montreal, Canada

  Ma Gastronomie, by Fernand Point, Published by FLAMMARION, Paris (1969)

  Thomas Keller

  Jerry Dollar

  Steve Mengel

  The author, “Slash” (Fagelson) Crowther, CIA, 1983

  David Burke

  Ed “The Rattlesnake” Brown

  Mike Colameco

  The 1988 ACF Western Regional Culinary Team

  Karl Peters, Jeffrey Mora, and Master Chef Raimund Hofmeister

  “The only apology letter Roland Henin ever wrote,” to Jeffrey Mora

  Lou Piuggi helps out his Patina Group event

  Roland Henin, William Bennett, and “Bunny Ears” Colin Moody

  Ashley Miller receives his CEC

  Keith Keogh

  Cowgirl, Jill Bosich

  Dan Thiessen

  Susan Ettesvold

  “ Home Plate” Cookbook Project, Delaware North Corporation, with Beth Brown

  “Is it good enough? Think again!”

  One of many training seminars at the CIA Greystone Campus, Napa

  Colin Moody creates an ice carving

  Ambarish Lulay and Roland Henin

  Scott Green and Roland Henin

  Randy Torres is hugged by team members as the Professional Culinary Institute wins the California State Culinary Championship!

  The “Travel Hospitality Group:” Adolfo Calles, Roland Henin, Dawn Hedges, Nick Catlett, Juan Carlos Velez

  Larry Johnson

  Rich Rosendale focusing at the Bocuse d’Or Competition, 2013

  Roland Henin and Ron DeSantis, Cancer Nutrition Consortium

  Master Chef Dan Hugelier does his stuff

  Roland Henin and Percy Whatley train for the 2014 CMC Exam

  Ambarish Lulay receives critique from Roland Henin

  The 2008 Culinary Olympic Team

  Roland Henin and Kevin Doherty train for the 2014 CMC Exam

  “Three Little Pigs” Competition Platter, by Kevin Doherty

  “The General and his Soldiers�
�� head to the Whitehouse

  A lighter moment with Roland Henin at the Ahwahnee Vintner’s Dinner

  Roland Henin gives his graduation speech, Greystone Campus, 2009

  Delaware North Chef Summit, 2012

  Brian Williams, Roland Henin, and Jeff Wong

  Current titleholder, “Best Boat B-tch,” Kevin Doherty

  “Behind every great woman…” Wife Joni Badley “out-catches” Roland Henin

  2017 Bocuse d’Or Competition. Team USA brings home the Gold, for the first time in the competition’s thirty-year history. Shown in the photo is Bocuse d’Or President Thomas Keller.

  2009 Bocuse d’Or Competition, Team USA, Left to Right: Adina Guest, Timothy Hollingsworth, Coach Roland Henin. Team USA placed sixth that year.

  A man and his mentor—Thomas Keller and Roland G. Henin

  Master Chef, Roland Gilbert Henin

  The late great Fernand Point, owner of La Pyramide, once considered the best restaurant in France when Chef Point was alive.

  A Master Chef finds Balance—newlyweds Joni Badley and Roland Henin